Lucy Maud Montgomery is perhaps best known as the author of the Anne of Green Gables series. Anne, an 11 year old girl, the hero of a girl’s novel has become a worldwide bestseller, from Canada to Japan, for children to adults. Tourism based on Anne is an important part of Prince Edward Island’s economy!
Information on L. M. Montgomery has practically become an industry on its own: multiple volumes of her Journals, her letters, and many works on Anne, and the author have been published. Many organizations to celebrate her works, have their own websites.
Information on L. M. Montgomery:
Thanks to the L. M. Montgomery Institute at UPEI for many of the scans of old magazines, of previously uncollected stories, from their Ryrie-Campbell Periodicals Collection.
Unmarked works which are hyperlinked are available on Faded Page.
Works marked with a * are currently under development at Distributed Proofreaders Canada and will be made available over the next few months.
Anne of Green Gables Series
Emily Trilogy
Pat of Silver Bush
The Story Girl
Miscellaneous
Chronological Short Story Collections
These individual stories have been collected and published as volumes by date by the Distributed Proofreading Team (US). They are mostly the same stories that were published in collections edited by Rea Wilmshurst during the ’80s and ’90s, which can be found below.
A good list of many of Montgomery’s short stories and their books can be found on the L. M Montgomery Literary Society site.
Short Story Collections, as originally published
These collections were made by LMM, though The Road to Yesterday/The Blythes are Quoted, were only published in modified form posthumously. All these stories, even the ones which were posthumously published, are probably out of copyright, since we eventually find all of her stories previously published in various periodicals. As the original publications are located, we are making individual stories available, from their original.
One day the Piper came down the Glen
Sweet and long and low played he!
The children followed from door to door,
No matter how those who loved might implore
So wiling the song of his melody
As the song of a woodland rill.
Some day the Piper will come again
To pipe to the sons of the maple tree!
You and I will follow from door to door,
Many of us will come back no more
What matter that if Freedom still
Be the crown of each native hill?
Friend o’ mine, in the year oncoming
I wish you a little time for play,
And an hour to dream in the eerie gloaming
After the clamorous day.
(And the moon like a pearl from an Indian shore
To hang for a lantern above your door.)
A little house with friendly rafters
And someone in it to need you there,
Wine of romance and wholesome laughters
With a comrade or two to share.
(And some secret spot of your very own
Whenever you want to cry alone.)
I wish you a garden on fire with roses,
Columbines planted for your delight,
Scent of mint in its shadowy closes,
Clean gay winds at night.
(Some nights for sleeping and some to ride
With the broomstick witches far and wide.)
A goodly crop of figs to gather,
With a thistle or two to prick or sting,
Since a harvesting too harmless is rather
An unadventurous thing.
(And now and then, spite of reason or rule,
The chance to be a bit of a fool.)
I wish you a thirst that can never be sated
For all the loveliness earth can yield,
Slim, cool birches whitely mated
Dawn on an April field.
(And never too big a bill to pay
When the Fiddler finds he must up and away.)
It winds beneath the shadow where the Druid fir trees lean
And through their parting boughs I see the harbour's purple screen.
Winds from the west are blowing o'er the mid-sea's purple skin,
And in the sunset distance the boats are coming in,
White-winged across the foam line of the misty, moaning bar,
And further still adown the coast shines out the lighthouse star.
’Tis just the same as when we walked together there of yore
But something's gone forever from the old path round the shore.
Here everything still speaks of you ... the waters lisp your name,
My listening heart repeats it as it used to when you came.
Your laughter in the breezes rings more clearly than your own,
The whispers in the fir boughs seem the echo of your tone,
The summer skies above the sea are as your deep eyes blue
The sweet wild roses on the bank are waiting, dear, for you.
But rose and lover wait in vain for you will come no more
To walk, the world forgetting, on the old path round the shore.
And I must go my way alone adown the shining strand,
And miss the kisses of your lips, the pressure of your hand,
And watch with lonely eyes the gleam of purple seas afar,
And shadowy sails that drift across the misty harbour bar;
I wonder if in distant lands where rarer roses blow,
You ever think of me and of those moments long ago,
And if did fate permit it you would gladly come once more
And walk with me at sunset on the old path round the shore.
Old friend, who art my guest tonight,
The moonshine makes your pillow white,
A low wind at the eaves will sing
Of many a secret far-off thing ...
Blue hills where shining fountains hide,
Dim shores that love the creeping tide ...
And may a cool whiff of the dew
Come in to minister to you.
There will be leafy rumours still
About your open window sill.
And in the silence you may hear
A grey owl calling to his dear,
Or catch from where you lie a spark
Of goblin firefly in the dark...
And may you learn with certainty
What a good friend a bed can be.
Milk-white against the hills of pine
Behind your aspens' shaking gold
You wait for me; I fondly hold
Your key and know that you are mine,
And all your lovely ghosts I see
Of days and years that are to be.
Grey twilights sweet with April rain,
The August madness of the moon,
October's dear autumnal croon,
December's storm against your pane,
Must all enchant and mellow you
O house, as yet too proudly new.
There must be laughter here and tears,
There must be victory and defeat,
Sweet hours and hours of bittersweet,
High raptures, loyalties and fears ...
All these must blend in you to give
A soul to you and make you live.
Music of children at your door,
And white brides glimmering down your stair,
Girls with May-blossoms in their hair,
And dancing feet upon your floor,
And lovers in the whispering night
For you, the house of friendly light.
There must be fireside councils here,
Partings and meetings, death and birth,
Vigils of sorrow as of mirth ...
All these will make you year by year
A home for all who live in you,
Dear house as yet too proudly new.
When winds blow soft from far away
Among the orchard trees,
The robins whistle out the day
With mellow minstrelsies.
When dews are falling cool and still
In valleys dim and far,
The robins flute upon the hills
To greet the evening star.
Hark, hear them in the beechen glade
And in the sunset woods!
Hark, hear them in the haunted shade
Of fern-sweet solitudes,
Where little pixy people creep
To learn the silver notes
That in one twilight rapture leaps
From scores of answering throats.
One must be glad to hear them so,
They are so glad themselves;
Some darling secret they must know
Shared by the tree-top elves,
Some secret they would fain repeat
To us ere darkness falls,
When far and sweet and near and sweet
We list the robin calls.
There is a house I love
Beside a calling sea,
And wheresoever I may rove
It must be home to me.
There every room's a friend
To all who come and go,
I know the garden at the end
And every tree I know.
The wild mint by the gate,
The pansies by the sill,
The pointed firs that always wait
Behind it on the hill.
That house is very wise
Remembering lovely things,
The moons of autumn skies,
The rains of brooding springs.
Laughter that was its guest
And vanished dancing feet,
Oh, never find you east or west
A house so wise and sweet.
A house still full of cheer
That is not bought or sold,
For houses that are loved so dear
Can nevermore grow old.
Yesterday we were young who now are old
We fought hot-hearted under a sweet sky,
The lust of blood made even cowards bold,
And no one feared to die;
We were all drunken with a horrid joy,
We laughed as devils laugh from hell released,
And, when the moon rose redly in the east,
I killed a stripling boy [ . . . . ]
I killed him horribly and I was glad.
Now we are old who yesterday were young
And cannot see the beauty of the skies,
For we have gazed the pits of hell among
And they have scorched our eyes.
The dead are happier than we who live,
For, dying, they have purged their memory thus
And won forgetfulness; but what to us
Can such oblivion give?
We must remember always; evermore
Must spring be hateful and the dawn a shame . . .
We shall not sleep as we have slept before
That withering blast of flame.
The wind has voices that may not be stilled . . .
The wind that yester morning was so blithe . . .
And everywhere I look I see him writhe,
That pretty boy I killed!
Our Own Collections of Short Stories
Mostly these collections contain stories that haven't been previously part of a popular collection. We try to bring you the original images from their original publications, if they are in the public domain. The poetry found in these collections has not been previous collected.
Other Short Stories, not known to be in a collection
All the collections of short stories, whether by LMM or other editors, were collections of stories previously published in many different magazines. These are stories we have located in various magazines, which we do not believe have been previously collected, at least, not in any collection targeted at a non-scholarly audience. All these stories are either now available, or are under development. Some we have collected ourselves, see the previous section.
Note that many of Montgomery’s novels appeared in various forms in various periodicals; either as serials, or as short stories which became one or two chapters of the novel. Such short stories were slightly different, to allow the stories to stand alone. Only a few of them have been included here.
I wish it were permissible to write fiction about oneself when asked for “an autobiographical sketch.” I get so tired of writing the same old facts over and over. As Anne herself said, I could imagine a heap of things about myself far more interesting than what I know! Any one of the “dream lives” I have lived by the score would be really thrilling.
I was born—praise to the gods!—in Prince Edward Island—the colourful little land of ruby and emerald sapphire. I come of Scottish ancestry, with a dash of English and Irish from several “grands” and “greats” and a French origin back in the mists of antiquity. The Montgomery's emigrated from France in wake of the French Princess who married a Scottish King. But they became so Scotchified eventually that they even had a tartan of their own.
My mother died when I was a baby and I was brought up by my grandparents in the old Macneill homestead at Cavendish—eleven miles from a railway and twenty-four from a town, but only half a mile from one of the finest sea-beaches in the world—the old North Shore.
I went to the “district school” there from six to sixteen. Out of school I lived a simple wholesome happy life on the old farm, ranging through fields and woods, climbing over the rocky “capes” at the shore, picking berries in the “barrens” and apples in big orchards. I am especially thankful my childhood was spent in a spot where there were many trees—trees with personalities of their own, planted and tended by hands long dead, bound up with everything of joy and sorrow that visited my life. The old King orchard in my books, “The Story Girl,” and “The Golden Road,” was drawn from life.
My little existence was very simple and quiet. But it never held a dull moment for me. I had in my imagination a passport to fairyland. In a twinkling I could whisk myself into regions of wonderful adventure, unhampered by any restrictions of reality.
For anything I know I might have been born reading and writing. I have no recollection of learning to do either. I devoured every book I could lay my hands on and new most of “Paradise Lost” and “The Pilgrim's Progress” by heart when I was eight. Novels were taboo, but fortunately there was no ban on poetry. I could revel it will in “the music of the immortals”—Tennyson, Byron, Scott, Milton, Burns. And one wonderful day when I was nine years old I discovered that I could write “poetry” myself!
It was called “Autumn,” and I wrote it on the back of an old post-office, “letter bill”—for writing paper was not too plentiful in that old farmhouse, where nothing was ever written save an occasional letter. I read it aloud to father. Father said it didn't sound much like poetry. “It's blank verse,” I cried. “Very blank,” said father.
I determined that my next poem should rhyme. And I wrote yards of verses about flowers and months and trees and stars and sunsets and addressed “Lines” to my friends. When I was thirteen I began sending verses to the Island weekly paper—and never heard either of or from them. Perhaps this is because I did not send any return stamps—being then in blissful ignorance of such a requirement.
Before this, however, when I was eleven years old, I had begun writing stories. I had a boxful of them—many tragic creations in which nearly everybody died. The “happy ending” was a thing unknown to me then. In those tales, “battle, murder and sudden death” were the order of the day.
When I was fifteen I had my first ride on a railway train, and it was a long one. I went out to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and spent a year with father who was living there. During that winter I sent a “poem,” written around one of the dramatic legends of the old North Shore, down to Charlottetown Patriot—and the Patriot printed it -thereby giving me the greatest moment of my life!
Being now, as I thought, fairly launched on a career, I kept sending verses to various papers and began to plume myself on being quite the literary person. I returned to Prince Edward Island the next summer, attended school for another year, then went to Prince of Wales College, Charlottetown, to qualify for a teacher's licence. After that I taught a year. During these years I was writing all sorts of stuff, mainly verses and short stories, but had never succeeded in getting into any periodical that paid anything. All the stuff I sent to other magazines came promptly back. I used to feel woefully discouraged at times over those icy rejection slips. But I kept on. Whatever gifts the gods had denied me they had at least dowered me with stick-to-it-iveness!
After teaching a year I went to Halifax and spent a winter taking a selected course in English literature at Dalhousie College. One day in that winter I got a letter from the editor of an American juvenile magazine accepting a short story I had sent him and enclosing a check for five whole dollars. Never in all my life have I felt so rich as I did then! Did I spend it for needed boots and gloves? I did not. I wanted to get something I could keep forever in memory of having “arrived.” I hied me down town and purchased leather-bound dollar editions of Milton, Byron, Wordsworth, Longfellow, and Tennyson. I have repented me of many things rashly bought in my life, but never of those. I have them yet—dingy and shabby now—but with the springs of eternal life still bubbling freshly in them. Not that I do not love many modern poets. I do. But the old magic was good and remains good.
I taught two more years. Then grandfather died and I went home to stay with grandmother. She and I lived there alone together in the old farmhouse for thirteen years, with the exception of one winter which I spent in Halifax working as proof-reader and general handy-man on the staff of the Daily Echo. In those years I wrote literally thousands of poems and stories—most of the latter being juveniles for the United States periodicals, the Canadian magazine market at that time being practically non-existent.
I had always hoped to write a book—but I never seemed able to make a beginning. I have always hated beginning a story. When I get the first paragraph written I always feel as if it were half done. To begin a book seemed quite a stupendous task. Besides, I did not see how I could get time from my regular writing hours. In the end I never deliberately set out to write a book. It just “happened.”
In the spring of 1904 I was looking over my note book of plots for an idea for a short serial I had been asked to write for a certain Sunday School paper. I found a faded entry, written many years before, “Elderly couple apply to orphan asylum for boy. By mistake girl is sent them.” I thought this would do. I began to “block out” the chapters, devise incidents, and “brood up” my heroine. Anne began to expand in such a fashion that she soon seemed very real to me. I thought it rather a shame to waste her on an ephemeral seven-chapter serial. Then the thought came, “Make a book of it. You have the central idea and the heroine. All you need do is to spread it over enough chapters to amount a book.”
The result was “Anne of Green Gables.” I wrote it in the evenings after my regular day's work was done. The next thing was to find a publisher. I typed it myself on my old second-hand typewriter that never made the capitals plain and wouldn't print “w” at all. Then I began sending it out—and kept on, because the publishers did not jump at it. It came back to me five times. The sixth time it was accepted. “Anne of Green Gables” was published in 1908. I did not dream it would be the success it has been. I thought girls in their teens might like it but that was the only audience I hoped to reach. Yet men and women who are grandparents, boys at school and college, statesmen at the helm of empires, soldiers in the trenches, old pioneers in the Australian bush, missionaries in China, monks in remote monasteries, Mohammedans in Java and red-headed girls all over the world have written to me of the delight they found in Anne.
With the publication of Green Gables a long struggle was over. Since then I have published thirteen novels and a volume of poems. Poetry was my first love and I have always regretted being false to it. But one must live.
Seventeen years ago I married a Presbyterian minister and came to Ontario to live. I like Ontario muchly but anyone who had once loved “the only Island there is” never really loves any other place. And so the scene of all my books, except the “Blue Castle” has been laid there.
The “Blue Castle” is in Muskoka. Muskoka is the only place I've ever been in that could be my Island's rival in my heart. So I wanted to write a story about it.
My new book, “Magic for Marigold,” will be out next summer. I've gone back to “The Island” in it. For there the fairies still abide despite the raucous shrieks of motor cars. There are still a few spots where one who knows may find them.
There is at least one spot left on earth where a little leisure is to be found, and that is in Prince Edward Island. People there have not yet forgotten how to live. They don't tear through life. Every time I, accustomed to the breathless tempo of existence elsewhere, go back to it I am impressed by this fact.
There is about life in "Abegweit" a certain innate and underlying serenity that is never wholly absent, even on days when a church "tea" is in the offing or the hay on the hill field must be got in before it rains. They realize that eternity exists—no, we realize it. For I am one of "the Islanders" still, though I have made my home in another land for a quarter of a century. We know that "he who believeth shall not make haste" . . . shall not run hither and yon aimlessly chasing the will-o'-wisps of ambition and fortune and power. We are all born knowing that "our own will come to us" . . . we have only to wait.
It is a great thing for a land to have this birthright . . . this background . . . this unfailing "oneness" with the great Eternal Spirit of beauty and reality and peace. Peace! You never know what peace is until you walk on the shores or in the fields of Prince Edward Island on a summer twilight when the dew is falling and the old old stars are peeping out and the sea keeps its nightly tryst with the little land it loves. You find your soul then—you realize that youth is not a vanished thing but something that dwells forever in the heart. And you look around on the dimming landscape of haunted hill and murmuring ocean, of homestead lights and old fields tilled by dead and gone generations who loved them—and you say, "I have come home!"
There are many things in my life for which I am thankful; but the one for which I am most thankful is that it was my good fortune to have been “born and bred” on Abegweit... that beautiful name for Prince Edward Inland which it should never have lost. I know perfectly well that deep down in my heart is a great pity for every one who was NOT born on Prince Edward Island. Can it ever be made up to them?
It was my further good fortune to have lived on the “north shore” of “the Island.” where I could gaze every day and night on the splendid pageant of the St Lawrence gulf ... splendid in its ever-changing beauty of dawn and noon and midnight, of storm and calm, wind and rain, starlight, moonlight, sunset. Sunset! I shall remember in the halls of eternity some sunsets I have seen over New London harbor.
We children of my day almost lived on the shore. There were so many things we could do there... It was a world in itself. Bathe on the sand beach... wade around the rocks... climb the red cliffs and poke seaswallows out of their nests... watch the white gulls soaring... gather pebbles, dulse, sea-moss, kelp, snails, mussels... run races over the sand... dig wells in it... build castles... climb the shining faces of the dunes... and slide down in a merry smother of sand... pile up driftwood... make shore pies... peep through the spyglass at the fishing boats... space faileth me to tell of all the things we did on that far away shore of long ago.
And the children living there to-day can do just those things. For that old shore is unchanged amid all the changes of the years.
Empires have toppled... a world has passed away... since I, as a child, played on the silver beaches of Prince Edward Island. But they are still there... still beautiful... still calling to their exiles with a voice we always hear. And in our dreams we go back to them.
Other Collections of Stories, by other editors, with commentary
These collections are still under copyright. However, the individual stories that were published prior to Montgomery’s death are out of copyright. The ones published in 1922 or prior have already been collected in the various collections produced by DP-US. See links above, to Chronological Short Story Collections.
Stories in these collections fall into one of three categories:
Poetry
Note some other poetry can be found mixed into some of the collections of short stories.
Letters
Non-fiction